I Found Brimstone in My Garden
by kotohiko
Summary: doc name: "trump wins chara fucking dies". / pre-precanon - the last bit of chara's life before they fell down. / warnings (and spoilers?): abusive family, self-harm, suicidal ideation, implied suicide, abrupt ending.


You watch the TV from the kitchen, awaiting the results with bated breath along with the rest of your family. They're so engrossed that they don't even notice your slacking off.

Thirteen is a sucky age. You're old enough to know shit about the world, too young to be taken seriously, and too young to take action yourself. Yeah, your opinions are still developing or whatever, but you're still somehow the only sane one in your house. Luck of the draw, you guess. Your mother and your aunt took your older sister under their wing – wings? – and have made her a terrible, revolting, flaming Republican. Disgusting. She's nineteen, for Christ's sake! She should know better! And your dad and older brother, seventeen, are in the same boat; the girls just like to be more vocal about it.

Since you're the only sane one, you're blaming gender. If one has it, then one is 100% more likely to vote for Donald Trump.

"Kid, get working!" someone yells. Hey, they got it right that time! You are, in fact, a young goat. Silly humans that they are, they usually call you a girl. Finally, they seem to understand. As a small goat, you consider bleating, but decide against it. You have grown out of bleating. You're basically an adult goat. An adoat. Haha! You should die.

You stir the soupbeans and check on the cornbread and muffins in the oven. Not much of a change. The soupbeans can simmer for as long as they need to while the shit in the oven finishes up. You turn down the heat so you won't be screwed if you forget to stir for a minute. The TV is on commercials, anyway.

Everyone in your family, minus your brother, voted in the presidential election. They all seem so sure that he's going to win, but they're watching the TV nervously regardless.

You think about the time you told them that you made friends with a transboy who wore a hijab. You wonder if your brother's knuckles are still bruised, or if your mom ever found that one ring. You think it's still under your mattress. After all, if it leaves a mark on your skin, that's basically finders keepers, except with more maternal violence. You almost laugh before you catch yourself. Definitely not worth it. Besides, you don't want to miss the look of shock on your family's collective face when they realize that they fucking lost. The country is stupid, but it's not stupid enough to vote for Trump over Clinton.

Except, oh wait! Yes, they are.

You barely refrain from sticking your face onto the hot stove eye. This can't be fucking real. This can't be fucking real. You set the table and wonder if you vomit right here, right now, if someone could put you out of your misery. You go stand beside the door, trying to block out everything.

Your family is cheering and your sister's punch to your gut as she passes you confirms the worst. You feel sick. You were sure – what the fuck, you were _sure_. People are dumb and terrible, but they can't possibly all be either as self-destructive as your or as blind and dumb and your repulsive family. You listen to the TV over the cacophony of noise your family makes while they eat while you stand in the corner.

You suddenly despise Washington, Jefferson, and who-the-fuck-ever-else decided that a plurality was better than a majority. Fuck that noise. Fuck that. Fuck America. Jesus Christ. You know what, fuck Jesus Christ too! What has he ever done for you? He doesn't even deserve to be your profanity. Your profanity is better than that.

The hot stove is looking more appealing by the second.

Not for the first time, you wonder if running away is worth it. For a while, it had seemed like a viable idea, but you can't help but lose faith in everyone in the immediate vicinity (read: in a five hundred mile radius) in light of recent events. Damn, you know that not _every_ _single_ person is wretched, but what do those far-off people matter? Why the hell should you care about them? All that you could ever know are the places you could reach on foot.

Like the mountain. You snort. Someone throws a spoon at you, and you're not quick enough to dodge. It makes a quiet clang as it hits the floor. You don't know whether or not to pick it up. On one hand, you're supposed to pick up trash. On the other, you're not supposed to talk or move while they're eating. What a dumb rule. What dumb people.

This time, a butter knife gets thrown your way. You should have picked it up, then. You dodge the knife – it hits the wall with a thud and the floor with a clatter. You pick up the silverware and hold it in your hand while you wait for them to finish eat.

It takes way too long. You get that they're "celebrating," but fucking hell, couldn't they pat their own asses in the living room? The dining room isn't for ass-patting. It's for dining. Appropriately, you've nicknamed the living room the ass-patting room.

Your sister drinks most of the wine and doesn't touch the food. Your mom only touches the cornbread – literally; she just keeps tapping it. Your dad and brother eat most of the food, like usual. Your aunt only eats the food of your dad's plate. You mom taps the cornbread faster. You see your mom eying your sister's empty plate. She probably wants to throw it at either her sister or her husband, so she'll throw it at you if this goes on for much longer.

It does. She does. The plate doesn't break when it hits the wall, but it does when it falls to the floor.

You pick it up. The shards cut your hands, so you focus on that to help you tune out whatever your mom is yelling at you. What's it for today? Lazy? Useless? Ungrateful? Disgusting? Stupid? Freakish? A drain on their resources?

You tune in for half a second. Ding, ding, ding! All of the above. As for your prize, you win…more abuse! Sorry, kid, the car was behind the first door; mental stability was behind the middle one. Always pick the middle door. Or the first. A car would be cool if you knew how to drive one and were able to give enough of a shit about your survival to ensure that you didn't crash within literal seconds of driving.

Maybe a car wouldn't be so cool.

Middle door. Pick that one.

You nod when the noise coming out of your mother's mouth stops. Luckily, that seems to be it for her tonight – she runs off crying to her room. You wonder if your dad will follow her up.

But, alas, your mustard seed of fortune has already been wasted. As though you could even think about good luck at a time like this. Shit, you know Trump won't be sworn in for a while, but just the thought that your family got their way – that he somehow fucking got elected – it makes you ill.

You try not to focus on that. You try not to focus on your dad and aunt either because that's making you feel ill, too. You wonder what would happen if you asked for medicine. You doubt they'd fatally injure you, so it probably wouldn't be worth it. You don't want to give them the satisfaction of giving you scars. That's something that you only you're allowed to do – permanently, at least. You can cover their work with your brother's lighter that you stole or your aunt's razor that she threw away. You don't belong to them, so they can't mark you. Not as long as you have a night to yourself.

Your brother yells something at you because he's upset at your dad. Your aunt yells at you because your brother distracted your dad. Your sister runs past you on her way to throw up in the bathroom, not passing up the opportunity to stick an arm out and knock you over. Your aunt throws a wine glass at you for moving.

Lovely stuff.

You pick up the shards and have to hold the glass, plate, knife, and spoon against your chest to keep it from falling. It cuts your shirt a bit, which doesn't really matter – the thing is ragged and dirty and old. You don't remember what color it used to be, but it's been brown for as long as you can remember.

You aunt ends up storming off as well at some point. She doesn't touch you, thankfully. She's constantly complaining that you're more trouble than you're worth, which you would agree with. But it's not like there's anything else you can do.

Oh, stove eye, if only you were hot again!

You clean up once your dad leaves, taking two beers out of the fridge and with him to his and your mom's room. You grimace – if they're not quiet, you _will_ suffocate yourself. Hopefully they'll just drink, yell, kiss, and then pass out. Hopefully.

You run your bleeding hand under the faucet in the sink so that you don't get blood on the clean dishes. You roll your eyes when it doesn't stop. You grab a pair of scissors out of one of the drawers and pull your hand inside the sleeve of your shirt. You cut off the last inch of the sleeve and put it around your injured hand, twist it to tighten it, and put the other layer on, like you would with a hair tie. You open and close your hand. Should hold for the next few minutes. You attack the dirty dishes with a vengeance, only having to reapply your bandage once. Your long sleeves are going to become three-quarters if you keep this up. You used to be more carefully about not cutting yourself on broken glass, but jeez, what does it matter at this point? What does anything matter at this point? Why the hell are you even still washing the dishes?

You throw away the broken dishes. What a waste of sharp edges. But you're not desperate enough to get them back out; a ridiculous amount of shit ends up in the kitchen trashcan. You refuse to touch it on principle alone.

You take a seat at the kitchen table. It somehow still feels hostile, even without your family sitting around it, ready to hurl something at you the moment they get upset.

You can hear your sister crying on the floor above you – the kitchen is right below her room. You pull at your hair, wishing she could be depressed a little bit quieter. That's your thing. She can't have that – she already has alcoholism and an eating disorder. Damn it, Marla Singer, _you_ get bowel cancer – she gets the parasites.

Huh, maybe you should take some advice from Marla and walk into the road while smoking a cigarette. You'd probably get hit pretty fast. You doubt anyone would call an ambulance.

You take your cloth bandage off your hand and toss it in the trash. The wound has almost stopped bleeding. You watch the blood slowly well up with detached interest. There's fuzz and dirt in the cut. That means it'll get infected, right? Can a hand infection kill you? Probably not. It would just make doing shit around the house even more difficult. You've learned that sore hands and wrists are not a good mix with manual labor. Hurts like hell, and you don't even get to visit.

You sigh wash your hand in the sink.

You pick at the edge of your skin as you think. You've never been one for politics. You've never had a reason to give a shit. Republican gets elected. Your dad breaks your nose. Democrat gets elected. You mom pulls out your hair. Normal, everyday shit, no matter who's in office.

But this is just – ridiculous. It was idiotic. It _is_ idiotic. It makes you sick to your stomach, knowing you'll have to hear about his policies and foreign relations. Your family will probably keep talking about it because they're only able to repeat the same information (or lack thereof) over and over again. And you'll be there, listening to it all. Listening and looking at these…these disgusting beings. You would call them monsters, but that's too much of a compliment. They're human. That's insult enough. They know what they're doing; they have a moral compass, and they twirl around and around so that it points south and follow it that way.

You realize that you're wasting water and turn it off. You hope no one heard it running for that long, and you tense as you watch the doorway.

Then you want to hit yourself over the head. The ones that aren't upstairs are probably drunk or otherwise inebriated. You hate that feeling – the one where it's almost like you care what they do to you. For these next weeks, or months, or years, they're all going to be insufferable. And you're going to have to…

No.

You know what?

No. No. Fuck. Fuck, you're done! You're finished! What else is there to do at this point wait another four years? Eight years? You have difficulty planning for the next day, let alone the next election year. Besides, what does it really matter? Your family will be down one cook, one punching bag, and one catch-all, blame-all. Perfect! What better way to annoy them than by getting rid of yourself? Your aunt will be pleased as all-get-out to see you gone, but the rest will at the very least feel a faint sense of annoyance. Maybe they'll yell at each other twice as much with you gone. You would say that you wished you could see it, except now, with a plan in mind, ever second you spend in this house makes you feel nauseous.

You feel petty and childish and self-centered. Which you are, so you guess that's fair. No, it's perfect! You are terrible and you can't fucking wait to die.

It's cold outside. You remember reading that when you freeze to death, it feels warm right before you die. Sadly, you don't that it's cold enough out for you to lie down in a patch of snow somewhere and finally get a good fucking rest. Mostly because there isn't even any snow.

You keep walking, farther away from the village, climbing up the mountain.

There are supposed to be bears up here, right? You wonder if you'll get mauled by a bear before you're able to find that hole in the ground. That would be neat. You reflexively stifle the laugh that bubbles up in your chest. Imagine, just imagine if a bear saw you – would it kill you, or would it see you, scoff, and walk off? Imagine!

The hole would be preferable, though. You've always loved heights. Jumping off a building or a bridge has always sounded like a great stress-reliever. And a great life-reliever. Same thing.

You walk faster. Then you start running. It feels good. Anything could happen to you. Where the hell is that hole supposed to be? Everyone jokes about it, don't they?

 _Stupid monsters. You should go join them, freak._

 _I would say that you'd fit right in, but even literal monsters would hate you._

Will they hate your corpse, you wonder? Will they eat it? Will they even find it?

You run as fast as you can. Your hair whips past you and hits your neck over and over and tap tap tap taps it. The minor annoyance makes you clench your fists. Local Child Commits Suicide Because Hair Fucking Sucks.

You want to scream or yell or _something_. Should you be crying? Your dry eyes keep searching for that barrier or what the hell ever. It's dangerous, you'll die, be careful up there, don't climb the mountain at night. Come on, why the hell would people be so cautious unless – ?

You feel a lurching in your stomach as you trip, and your hands reach out to break your fall.

They aren't able to. You keep falling. And falling.

You feel sick. You close your eyes. You wait for the crash.

And then it's dark.


End file.
